Analysis: For Obama, what to do about Iran nukes?

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Analysis: For Obama, what to do about Iran nukes?

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid, Ap Diplomatic

Writer – 1 hr 25 mins ago

WASHINGTON – After years of suspense and suspicion, Iran still denies

it is trying to make a nuclear bomb. Analysts foresee the Iranians'

success in a few years at most, but they disagree widely over a

likely timetable.

President-elect Obama says Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons

are unacceptable. At a postelection news conference, Obama said, " We

have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening. "

Senior diplomats from the United States, Britain, China, France,

Russia and Germany are meeting Thursday in Paris to discuss efforts

to stop Iran's nuclear program with sanctions, but Russian and

Chinese reluctance has stymied efforts for a unified stance.

In dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions, Obama faces questions that

include whether to keep a U.S. military threat on the table, whether

to temper or increase economic sanctions on Tehran and whether to

offer economic and diplomatic concessions to Iran, directly or

indirectly, in exchange for a verifiable suspension of suspicious

nuclear activity.

H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International

Studies in Washington said in a report this month that Iran now has a

technology base to make nuclear weapons, limited only by its current

level of uranium enrichment.

" The worst case for a nuclear device is 2009, but it could well be

2011-2015 before Iran gets there, " Cordesman said in an interview

Tuesday. He added: " The critical issue is when Iran could have an

effective nuclear-armed missile force. That could easily take two to

three years longer. "

Israel says Iran could have enough nuclear material to make its first

bomb within a year. The United States estimates that Iran is at least

two years away.

" Estimates differ on the status of Iran's nuclear program because

there are simply few hard facts, " said Makovsky, foreign

policy director of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

In a recent report by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a task force

headed by former Sens. Dan Coats, R-Ind., and Robb, D-Va.,

concluded that once Iran produces 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds) of low-

enriched uranium it could be capable of producing 20 kilograms (44

pounds) of highly enriched uranium, the minimum necessary for a

nuclear device, in as little as 16 days. International inspectors

found an Iranian stockpile of 75 kilograms (165 pounds) at the end of

2007.

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes such as

energy production.

Albright, a former U.N. arms inspector who heads the Washington-

based Institute for Science and International Security, says Iran has

improved its centrifuges at the Natanz desert enrichment plant and

could be capable of making nuclear weapons in six months to two years.

Explaining the varying estimates, Albright said: " We are talking

about the future and can Iran succeed. Iran has taken a lot longer

than one would expect to achieve success with enrichment than others

would have thought possible. "

Also complicating forecasts, it is difficult to interpret whether

Iran would want to make one weapon — which the institute assumes — or

two or three, Albright said in an interview. " Some of the estimates

depend on that choice, " he said, and " sometimes people use worst case

scenarios. "

Makovsky, meanwhile, said there are a number of elusive facts that

contribute to the difficulty in making estimates. These include

whether Natanz is Iran's only enrichment facility, how many

centrifuges are functioning and how efficiently, and how much uranium

already has been fed into the centrifuges.

Even assumptions about how much fissile material is necessary to

build a nuclear device vary. And it is not known how many kilograms

of low-enriched uranium Iran has, Makovsky said.

Kay, the former head of the U.S. weapons-hunting team in Iraq,

has estimated Iran is two to five years away from being able to

produce a nuclear weapon. That is, Iran is 80 percent of the way to a

nuclear weapon, Kay said last month. But he estimated that the last

20 percent of development is the most difficult.

Also, Kay said, Iran has worked on the program for 20 years without

producing a weapon.

Like all foreign policy issues, Iran's nuclear weapons program drew

little attention from the presidential candidates during the

campaign. The faltering economy dominated the discussion.

But Iran looms as one of the most imminent and serious problems for

Obama to confront.

At one point during the campaign he said he supported unconditional

talks with Iran's leaders. Later, he spoke without much elaboration

in favor of direct diplomacy, which seems less bold.

Either way, the incoming president is far more inclined than

President Bush to deal directly with Iran's leaders.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad congratulated Obama on

Thursday, the first time an Iranian leader has offered good wishes to

a U.S. president-elect since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad

sent a message to Obama in which he congratulated him for " attracting

the majority of voters in the election. "

The text of the note was carried by the official IRNA news agency.

Israeli foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, meanwhile, said Obama should

not talk to Iran just yet. Such dialogue could project " weakness, "

she cautioned.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Barry Schweid has covered diplomacy for The

Associated Press since 1973.

(This version CORRECTS that Coats-Robb task force report was from the

Bipartisan Policy Center, not from CSIS.)